The causes and means whereby every virtue is cultivated or destroyed are the same, just as in the case of all the arts. It is by playing the lute that people become good or bad lute players, and the same holds for builders and all the rest. B building well peopl get to be and they bad from building badly. If this was not the case, there would be no need for teachers, and everyone would be born good or bad. It is just like this with the virtues. By behaving in a certain way in our dealings with human beings some of us become just and others unjust by what we do in the face of danger, and by acquiring habits or boldness, we become brave or cowardly. And the same holds good with respect to desires and feelings of anger: some people become temperate and patient, while others become self indulgent and bad-ternpered, depending on the way they behave in the relevant situations. In a word, activities of a certain kind produce corresponding dispositions. This is why the activities we perform must be of a certain kind, for as these differ, so the dispositions that follow from differ. Thus the kinds of habits we form from early childhood are of no small importance; they matter a great deal indeed, they make all the difference